


Companion Piece #1

by batyatoon



Series: Companion Pieces [1]
Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Deleted Scenes, Gen, Introspection, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 08:32:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7677391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyatoon/pseuds/batyatoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set just prior to and during the film <i>Serenity</i>.  Dialogue is from a deleted scene.</p><p>Originally posted <a href="http://purimgifts.livejournal.com/31554.html">here</a>, for the 2009 Purimgifts fic exchange.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Companion Piece #1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenRiley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenRiley/gifts).



> Set just prior to and during the film _Serenity_. Dialogue is from a deleted scene.
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://purimgifts.livejournal.com/31554.html), for the 2009 Purimgifts fic exchange.

While it is true that a Companion chooses her clients, it is not her own inclinations and desires that should form the basis of her choice -- except in that her skills, her gifts, are likeliest to run along the same channels as those desires. A Companion who prefers the company of the experienced and sophisticated will not suit the needs of a young and green client, and vice versa. One is, of course, expected to broaden one's own scope as much as possible; one should strive to be versatile, and to develop a true appreciation for many different kinds of people. Not _regardless_ of age or gender or appearance or personality, but _because_ of them.

But it is important to know oneself. Don't ignore your own desires: cultivate them and use them, the better to serve your client's needs. 

Inara has believed this since her apprenticeship, and (more to the point) still believes it. When she instructs the apprentices here at the Training House, she can say it with the calm certainty she remembers from her own teachers. _I have the truth,_ says that voice, _and it has given me strength; and I give it now to you._ With her students, as with her clients over the years, it's a very useful technique.

( _Like everything else_ , says the sardonic voice at the back of her mind, the one that sometimes sounds like her own and sometimes sounds inexplicably deeper, drier, with a Rim accent. She ignores it, now as always.)

The trouble with cultivating that kind of self-awareness is that it makes it much more difficult to fool yourself. Not impossible; just much more difficult. And when one finally has to face a truth one has been --

Oh, why bother framing it in the abstract anymore? When she herself had to come to terms with that one overwhelming desire, when she faced the truth about just how strong it was, well then ... she had a choice. Live with it, and be overwhelmed by it, and accept her inability to do otherwise; or leave, and be owned by no one but herself. No one but herself, ever.

Which was of course no choice at all.

 _Your Captain Reynolds has probably gotten himself blown up by this time_ , Sheydra says lightly, and Inara looks away.

 _Yes_ , she says; and keeps her own voice, like her own desires _(like everything else)_ , under control. _That would be just like him_.

* * *


End file.
